College and Research Libraries


Library Characteristics_ of Colleges Ranking 

High in Academic Excellence 

THERE IS an extensive literature of per-
suasive writing arguing that the library 
is the heart of the college; so much so 
that this has sometimes become a cliche 
or platitude given lip service but not 
actual implementation by college faculty 
and administrators. 

It would seem logical that librarians 
would be in the forefront in declaring 
the central importance of the library. 
However, an examination of the liter-
ature reveals that nonlibrarians have 
perhaps written as much as librarians on 
this subject, and sometimes with even 
more eloquence or forcefulness (perhaps 
librarians have been overly careful about 
offending the sensibilities of faculty or 
of appearing as extremists). For example, 
a scholar as eminent and respected as 
Henry Steele Commager has written as 
follows, 

"Now that students can read for themselves, 
the English universities have turned more 
and more from lectures to tutoring or to 
self education ... but in the United States, 
which has the best library facilities in the 
world . . . professors go on giving courses 
as blithely as if no printed books were avail-
able. One simple way, then, to meet the 
shortage of teaching talent, is to cut down 
on the lectures and therewith the number 
of professors that lectures call for. From 
the point of view of the student, the time 
spent going to lectures and preparing for 
course examinations can more profitably be 
spent in the library."! 

Despite the verbal recognitiOn of the 
basic importance of the library, very lit-
tle is actually known of the causal re-
lationship existing between the quality 
or size of the library and the academic 

1 "The Problem Isn't Bricks-It's Brains," New 
York Times Magazine, Januacy 29, 1956, p. 11. 

SEPTEMBER 1963 

Bv ROBERT T. JORDAN 

Mr. jordan resides in McLean~ Virginia. 

quality of the school. It is commonly 
assumed that libraries of high quality 
are usually, if not always, associated with 
schools of high quality. Is it possible 
that these basically subjective impres-
sions, albeit from knowledgeable andre-
spected experts, can be proven?2 Prob-
ably not, in view of the multitude of 
complex variables and the virtual im-
possibility of any controlled experiments 
that would involve entire campuses. 

Then how are we to know that li-
braries of high quality might not be a 
subsequent product of the quality of the 
school but not essential to that quality? 
Perhaps quality libraries and quality 
schools are the fortunate result of a com-
bination of a particular milieu of faculty 
and student expectations, interests, and 
values. 

2 There have been two recent indirect but impressive 
confirmations of the preeminent importance of the li-
brary for academic excellence. One is the study made 
by Harold B. Whiteman, Jr., dean of the freshman 
year, Yale University, quoted in an April 17, 1963 re-
lease from the National Book Committee: "Recently, 
we have administered to several successive entering 
classes in toto, the Library Orientation Test for En-
tering College F ,reshmen published by the Teachers 
College of Columbia University. Our purpose was to 
assist the staff of the library in making more effective 
its efforts to make accessible and understandable all of 
its resources, to fill in any gaps of information on the 
part of students when it came to the question of how 
to use a library. To our surprise, we discovered that 
the correlation between the results of this test and 
performance during the freshman year was extraordi-
narily high, higher than any other one single test." 

The second indirect confirmation is Project Talent, 
by all odds the most authoritative and comprehensive 
study ever made of the American high school and' the 
criteria that are related to quality. Of the many hun-
dreds of possible criteria studied (from thousand-item 
questionnaires from one thousand high schools), four 
seemed to be of unique importance in association with 
scholastic excellence : teacher salaries, teacher experi-
ence, number o.f books in the school library, per-pupil 
expenditure. This was true even when such factors as 
region, rural-urban-suburban status and socio-economic 
background of students were held constant. (Project 
Talent. A Survey and Follow-up Study of Educatirmal 
Plans and DecisJons in Relatirm to Aptitude Patterns: 
Studies of the American High School. Monograph No. 
2. [Pittsburgh; University of Pittsburgh, 1962].) 

369 



Apparently the hypothesis is not sub-
ject to rigorous proof. However if we 
can actually find that high-quality 
schools almost universaUy have high-
quality libraries and vice versa, there 
would certainly seem to be a persuasive 
suggestion that an operative causal re-
lationship does actually exist. Such a 
correlation has not before been attempt-
ed, probably for lack of knowledge of 
what actually constitutes academic ex-
cellence, and which specific colleges 
could be considered to rank highest in 
academic excellence. 

ScoRING oF CoLLEGEs As To AcADEMIC 

EXCELLENCE 

There are no groups in America con-
cerned with disseminating specific and 
critical information on the quality of 
colleges and universities comparable to 
the work of Consumer Reports7 for ex-
ample, in the field of consumer products, 
or of book reviews for books. The re-
gional and national accrediting associa-
tions are specifically concerned about 
quality but not in any very precise or 
useful way, at least to the average citizen. 
Louis J oughin, staff associate in the 
American Association of University Pro-
fessors, suggests: 

"Fact and fiction with regard to the quality 
of the work done by the colleges and uni-
versities is a delicate subject. It is unnec-
essary to go over such familiar ground as 
inordinate emphasis upon athletics or the 
offering of masters degrees for studies not 
suited to intellectual inquiry. The weak-
nesses and malfunctions are known. What 
needs present emphasis is that the public 
is not informed about the facts. Admittedly, 
the choice ()f a means to display colleges and 
universities accurately and comprehensively 
is a large problem requiring full explqration. 
But one approach, at the v~ry least, might 
be to establish more Illuminating kinds and 
levels of accreditation; as things now stand, 
accreditation appears to be mainly a finding 
that an institution is not conspicuously de-
fective in physical and staff resources. That 
is obviously not enough; there 'are· far too 
many accredited institutions lacking . other 
essential elements; or, if that pessimistic 

view is disputed, it is at least obvious that 
institutions which are miles apart in quality 
receive the same simple approval in terms 
of certification to the public."3 

In recent years there has been a pro-
nounced upsurge of interest in quality 
in higher education. Many of the char-
acteristics of academic excellence are 
now known with reasonable accuracy; 
the proof is the quality of the education 
absorbed by the stud~nt. Winslow Hatch, 
in a rna jor statement on the hypotheses 
of quality "What Standards Do We 
Raise?; Criteria for Colleges" (Working 
Draft, January 9, 1962) states 

1. There are criteria of excellence about 
which one can be explicit; which get at the 
"substance" as against the "forms" of higher 
education; 
2. There is a pattern in these criteria as 
applicable to one. institution as another; 
3. These criteria are as important to the 
less well-endowed as to the most brilliant 
student; in a word, they are important to 
all students capable of profiting from a 
higher education. 

Using a few commonly accepted cri-
teria of academic excellence, I have de-
veloped an analysis of undergraduate 
colleges and universities related to the 
following: 

1. Faculty influence on students: 

a. Effectiveness in constructively and 
fundamentally changing values of the 
students, or in providing deeper in-
sight into their pr.esent values. 
Weight of two.4 

b. Peculiar potency of some colleges to-
ward liberalism. Weight of two.4 

2. Selected lists of best colleges made 
by others, emphasizing academic excel-
lence: 

a. Twelve top universities for graduate 
sc.hools in the arts and sciences 
throughout the country. 5 

8 Louis J oughin, "The Present Responsibility of 
Free Teachers," American Association of University 
Professors Bulletin, XLVII (June 1961), 151-58. 

4 Philip E . Jacob, Changing Values in College (New 
York : Harper, 1957), pp. 99 -116 . 

. 5 'Bernard Berelson, Graduate Education in the Unit-
ed Stales . '(New York.: Columbia University Press, 
1960), p . 126. 

): ,, . . 
370 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



b. Forty-five nongraduate colleges rPri-
vate1 high on academic standards, se-
lected by the American Conference of 
Academic Deans. Weight of two. 6 

c. Fifteen best liberal arts colleges in 
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, 
Minnesota, and Wisconsin.7 

d. Forty best colleges. Weight of two. 8 

e. Fourteen top institutions. 9 

f. Graduate schools as ranked by gradu-
ate department chairman. Weight of 
two.1° 

g. Forty best colleges ranked by fifty pro-
fessors and administrators. Weight of 
two. 11 

h. Four good private colleges.12 

3. Proportion of graduates receiving 
doctoral degrees or other graduate dis-
tinctions: 

a. Thirty highest in proportion of grad-
uates who secured PhD. in a natural 
science. 13 

b. Proportion of male graduates who 
achieved PhD.'s or fellowships-fifty-
five highest institutions.14 

c. Proportion of female graduates who 
secured PhD.'s or fellowships-nine-
teen highest institutions. 14 

d. Sixteen highest in proportion of male 
graduates who achieved distinction 
among schools graduating eighty or 
fewer. 14 

e. Twenty highest in proportion of male 
graduates who secured PhD. or fel-
lowships in the humanities.14 

f. Five highest among miscellaneous 
schools.14 

6 William E . Cadbury, "Outstanding Students in 
Liberal Arts Colleges," Liberal Edu cation, XLVII 
(December 1961), 515 -31. 

T Chicago Tribune, February 3, 1961. 
a Paul H. Davis, " Changes Are Coming in the Col-

leges, " The Journal of H igher Ed u cation, XXXIII 
(March 1962), 141-47. 

9 Ford Foundation, Ann ual Report, 1961, 1962, 1963. 
1o Hayward Keniston , Graduate Stu dy and Research 

in the Arts and Scien ces at the Univ ersity of Pennsyl-
vania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 
1959) . 

u Chester Manly, "Greatest Schools in the Nation," 
Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1957. 

u Martin Mayer, "Good Colleges That Are Not 
Crowded," Harper' s, CCXVIII (February 1959), 44-49. 

u Hubert Baker Goodrich, "The Orig_ips of U .S. 
Scientists," Scientific American, CLXXXV (July 
1951), 15-17. 

SEPTEMBER 1963 

g. Proportion of male graduates who 
achieved distinction in social sciences 
-twenty highest institutions.14 

h. Thirty highest in science doctorates.15 
1. Thirty highest among college teach-

ers.16 
j. Thirteen highest women's colleges in 

proportion of graduates taking PhD.'s 
in arts, humanities, and social scien-
ces.17 

4. Faculty salaries.Is 
5. Willingness of the administration 

to take a strong position on matters af-
fecting basic principles of academic free-
dom. Weight of two.I9 

6. Emphasis on the academic program 
as contrasted with social status, beauty 
contests, and quasi-professional athletic 
programs (e.g., schools without near-pro-
fessional football, or fraternities). 2o 

7. Receptivity to unique or experi-
mental programs, or to the results of 
educational research, such as "year 
abroad" programs, work-study programs, 
elimination of departments or academic 
rank, cross-curricular experiments, etc. 21 

14 Robert H. Knapp and Joseph J. Greenbaum, The 
Younger American Scholar; His Collegiate Origins 
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 16, 
70, 73, 76 , 16, 77, 16, respectively. 

15 William A. Manuel, The Baccalaureate Origins of 
Medical Students (Washington: Department of Health, 
Education, and Welfare, 1961). 

1o Allan 0. Pfnister, A Report on the Baccalaureate 
Origins of College Faculties (Washington: Association 
of American Colleges, 1961) . 

1T Sister Helen Sheeha n, "The Catholic College and 
the Ph.D.," The Catholic Educational Review , LV 
(April 1957) , 258-61. 

18 "The Economic Status of the Profession, 1959-60: 
Annual Report by Committee Z," American Association 
of University Professors Bulletin, XLVI (June 1960), 
162. 

19 "Repealing the Disclaimer Affidavit," ibid. (March 
1960), 55-61; "Protesting the Disclaimer Affidavit; 
the Association , the Colleges and the Universities," 
ibid. (June 1960), 205 -0 6. 

20 As listed with the National Collegiate Athletic As-
sociation. 

21 Institute of International Education, Program s for 
U .S. Und erg r aduates in Other Countries (New York: 
Institute of International Education, 1960); Institute 
of Research on Overseas Programs , Intern atiottal Pro-
grams of Am erican Un iversities (East Lansing, Mich._, 
1958); "College Programs-Unique or E x perimental," 
Mademoi <elle, XLVIII (January 1959); "The Editor's 
Bookshelf," Saturday Rev iew , XLIII (November 19, 
1960), 72; Seminar on the Economics of Higher Edu-
cation, Harvard University, 1958-1959, Hinher Educa-
tion in the United States, The Economic Problems, ed. 
by Seymour E. Harris (Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1960); Elizabeth Paschal, Encou raging the 
Excellent (New York: Fund for the Advancement of 
Education, 1960); U . S. Office of Education, New Di-
mensions in Higher Education, the Experimental Col-
lege (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1960). 

371 

·-



8. Independent study programs, par-
ticularly those involving freshman or 
average students. 22 

9. Intellectual climate. 23 
10. Proportion of faculty in scholarly 

or professional organizations. Weight of 
two. 24 

11. De-emphasis or elimination of 
marks or grades (examination of 100 se-
lected college catalogs reveal that six do 
this). 

12. Elimination of faculty rank (ex-
amination of I 00 selected college cata-
logs reveal that four do this). 

13. Promotion of interdisciplinary at-
mosphere (examination of 100 selected 
college catalogs reveal that eight have 
eliminated departmental organization). 

14. Average score of entering fresh-
men in scholastic aptitude. 25 

15. Ranking in effective scholarship 
money per student enrolled in ~ropor­
tion to total student expense. W ezght of 
two. 26 

16. Strength of continuing education 
program.27 

The validity of each of the above cri-
teria as an index to academic excellence 
may be confirmed by anyone. He may 
choose from personal know ledge ten 
schools that he would rank high in aca-
demic excellence and, using these cri-
teria, compare them with another ten of 
average or poor quality. Another test of 
the validity of these criteria is an exam-
ination of the colleges actually ranked 
highest through use of these criteria. If 

22 Fund for the Advancement of Education, B etter 
Utilization of College Teaching Reso_urces, a ~~m­
mary Report. A Report by the Comm~ttee on Uttllza-
tion of Co llege Teaching Resources (New York: Fund 
for the Advancement of Educa~ion, _1959)_, p . . 62; 
U.S. Office of Education, New D~mennons m !f~gher 
Ed~tcation, No . 1. I ndependent Stttdy (Washmgton: 
Government Printing Office, 1960); Ro~ert H. B_on· 
thius The Independent Study Program ~n the Umted 
State~ (New York: Columbia Univers_ity Press, 1957). 

23 George J. Stern, Intellectual Chmate (Syracuse: 
Syracuse University Press, 1962). . 

24 Institutional Distrib1ttion (Washington: Amencan 
Association of University Professo.rs, Annual. Mimeo). 

25 "Freshman Class: 1960," Life, XLIX (October 3, 
19~e0fh;r5~~~1.Birch Wilkins, Financial Aid for Col-
lege Students; Undergraduate (Washin gton : U.S. Of-
fice of Education, 1957). 

27 A Ten Year Report, 1951-61 (New York: Fund 
for Adult Education), p. 95 . 

these colleges are accepted as leaders in 
excellence, then it would appear valid 
to examine the relative ranking of the 
others as well. It is, of course, evident, 
however, that a deliberate selection of 
criteria and weightings can elevate an y 
college or group of colleges to top rank-
ing. 

The above criteria do not discrim-
inate schools on the basis of size, antiq-
uity, wealth, prestige, or popularity. 
Rather they relate to total academic ef-
fectiveness as manifested in the creativity 
of its graduates; inclination toward spec-
ulative, critical, and independent think-
ing; responsible social and political ac-
tion; receptivity to learning and to the 
new and different; capacity for independ-
ent study; objectivity; freedom from 
authoritarianism; intellectual curiosity; 
social independence and maturity; and 
appreciation of the arts. The above cri-
teria apply only to liberal arts colleges; 
they are equally valuable in vocational-
ly-oriented institutions. Neither are these 
criteria weighted to reflect the popular 
perversion of excellence to mean simply 
quantity (as against quality) of study, 
heavy assignments in traditional sub-
jects, uncritical regurgitation of lectures 
in order to achieve high grades in exam-
inations, or elimination of extracurricu-
lar activities. 

The application of these criteria to the 
institutions named resulted in a numer-
ical score for each, with high scores de-
noting academic excellence. Although 
the highest possible theoretical score for 
any college was 50, in actuality no insti-
tution could, for technical reasons, have 
conceivably attained a score higher than 
35. Ten institutions thus developed 
scores of 14 or more, the highest being 
Reed College with a score of 22. There 
were few surprises among the first twen-
ty-five colleges; their quality is widely 
recognized. There is perhaps more inter-
est in the next fifty or seventy-five. The 
scores, which are given in the appendix 
to this paper, were distributed as follows: 

372 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



ScoRE 

14 or over . 
10 through 13. 
8 or9 . 
6 or 7 . 
4or5. 
2 or 3. 
0 or I . 

No. oF 

INSTITUTIONS 

13 
12 
11 
29 
55 

108 
remainder 

A great danger inherent in such an 
analysis is literal or uncritical acceptance. 
The listings obviously cannot be consid-
ered definitive or precise, in I, 2, 3 order. 
They have value only in terms of order 
of magnitude, hence the use of seven 
groups. In a sense, the scores are still pre-
liminary, as there are many dozens of cri-
teria of excellence that can still be ap-
plied in order to build up a higher, and 
hence increasingly more significant, com-
posite score (see Appendix C). No single 
criterion is all-significant. And also, any 
single criterion can be misinterpreted or 
misapplied, because of inaccuracies, vag-
aries, or gaps in reporting information. 
Such distortions and inaccuracies, how-
ever, become progressively less significant 
as more criteria are applied. 

It is assumed that any institution in 
one group might actually deserve to be 
either in the next higher or the next 
lower group. Thus, any college with a 
score of 6 or 7 might actually deserve to 
be in the 8 or 9 group, or the 4 or 5 
group. 

One further qualification of the sig-
nificance of the data must be made. In 
all instances an attempt has been made 
to secure the most recent data available; 
in some instances these data are current. 
In other instances, the supporting data 
are necessarily historical, from as many 
as ten or twenty years ago (as for ex-
ample, the proportion of graduates even-
tually receiving doctoral degrees). Thus, 
a newly established college, or a college 
that is increasing its level of academic 
excellence at a rate higher than the aver-
age among all colleges, would be insuf-
ficiently recognized. 

SEPTEMBER 1963 

The general significance of the scores 
has been verified by the inspection of ex-
perts on the subject of academic excel-
lence. However, the choice of criteria has 
been the author's (based largely on con-
venience of access to the supporting in-
formation), and in that sense it is sub-
jective. The application of a different 
group of equally significant criteria (re-
lated to academic excellence) would 
doubtless result in a listing that would 
differ in a few details from that inc~uded 
in this report. 

It should also be stressed that this 
study was designed deliberately to desig-
nate a group of approximately one hun-
dred colleges among the several hundred 
that could be considered as excellent. 
This was done by use of a cutoff point 
for the twenty to forty top ranking col-
leges for each criterion. If the top one 
hundred to two hundred top ranking col-
leges for each criterion had been includ-
ed, the list would undoubtedly have in-
cluded several hundred colleges instead 
of 119. 

CoRRELATION oF LIBRARY CHARACTERISTics 

AND AcADEMIC ExcELLENCE 

The most comprehensive college li-
brary statistics are those of the Library 
Services Branch of the Office of Educa-
tion which are published annually as 
Library Statistics of Colleges and Uni-
versities. The data collected in this pub-
lication were compared with the above 
excellence ranking of colleges in order to 
discover which data correlated most 
closely. In · order to increase the homo-
geneity, publicly sponsored colleges were 
excluded, as were those colleges with 
fewer than five hundred students or with 
more than fifty graduate students. All 
colleges scoring 4 or more were included 
in one group (thirty-nine colleges total 
-the top 6 per cent of all colleges). A 
random selection of thirty-nine colleges 
was made from the group ranking 1 or 0 
(the bottom 88 per cent of all colleges). 

Correlation between criteria listed be-

373 



low and academic excellence of the insti-
tution: 

High correlation 
Volumes in library 
Volumes in library for each undergrad-

uate student 
Per student salary expenditure by the 

library 
Moderate correlation 

Age of the school 
Per student operating expenditure by 

the library 
Number of periodical subscriptions in 

the library 
Low correlation 

Volumes acquired per year by the li-
brary 

Ratio of library expenditure to total 
expenditure 

Two specific conclusions from this 
study are that in high quality colleges 
with more than five hundred students 
and less than fifty graduate students a 
minimum of approximately fifty books 
per student and approximately fifty 
thousand books in the collection is re-
quired. The difference between the high 
ranking schools and all other schools is 
decisive--On the order of two to one-as 
can be seen from Table 1. 

Using Shephard's method of unlike 
signs, the correlation coefficient is approx-
imately .97, which means that there is 
practically no possibility that the differ-
ence between the two groups could be 
due to chance. 

If it would be possible to identify the 
bottom 6 per cent instead of the bottom 
88 per cent, the contrast between the two 
groups would doubtless be of the magni-
tude of four or five to one. 

Total salaries paid to library staff are 
also closely associated with academic ex-
cellence, as can be seen from Table 1. 
However, the dollar amounts are based 
on reports from 1958-59. Extrapolating 
to present salary levels, it is clear that a 
minimum of from $25 to $30 is required 
in library salaries for each student en-
rolled. 

Although there is not such a high de-
gree of correlation, it would appear that 
a minimum of three hul)dred and fifty 
periodical subscriptions is required in a 
college ranking high in academic excel-
lence and a minimum library expendi-
ture per student of $50. Even though less 
precise, it would appear that at least two 
thousand volumes a year and an expen-
diture for the library of at least 3.5 per 
cent of the total school expenditure is 
required for colleges ranking high in 
academic excellence. 

In the compilation of this study, dis-
tinctions were made between colleges 
with more than one thousand students, 
men's, women's, and co-educational col-
leges, and colleges with scores of more 
than seven on the ranking scale. There 
were no very precise conclusions from 
these further comparisons, except that 
the larger schools had larger libraries, 
and that the schools ranking above seven 

TABLE 1 

VoLUMES IN PER STUDENT 
VOLUMES IN LIBRARY LIBRARY FOR EACH SALARY EXPENDITURE 

lJNDERGRADUATE STUDENT BY THE LIBRARY 

Colleges Colleges Colleges Colleges Colleges Colleges 
ranking ranking ranking ranking ranking ranking 

4 or over 1 or 0 4 or over 1 o.r 0 4 or over 1 o.r 0 
(top 6%) (bottom 88%) (top 6%) (bottom 88%) · (top 6%) (bottom 88%) 

Highest library . 328,000 279,000 366 187 $110.00 $40.00 
75th percentile 165,000 60,000 185 77 $ 46.00 $25.00 
Median 102,000 50,000 124 60 $ 35.00 $20.00 
25th percentile 76,000 37,000 94 48 $ 25.00 $14.00 
Lowest library 44,000 28,000 47 14 $ 20.00 $ 8.00 

374 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



tended to have larger libraries than those 
ranking frorri three to six. One interest-
ing sidelight is the conclusion that a pri-
vate co-educational school, with less than 
one thousand students, with a library of . 
more than sixty thousand volumes, is al-
most certain to have a high ranking in 
academic excellence. 

There are various possibilities for a 
"common sense" inspection of the con-
clusion that a minimum of 50,000 vol-
umes are required in a college ranking 
high in academic quality. For example, 
two hundred and fifty courses constitute 
a moderate number for a typical college 
(ten courses in each of twenty-five sub-

ject fields). If the library has an average 
of one hundred and fifty books to sup-
port each course, certainly a modest 
amount, plus twelve thousand and five 
hundred books not directly related to 
any specific course, the total would be 
fifty thousand volumes. 

It is fairly conclusive that fifty thou-
sand volumes are required in a good col-
lege library. However, the reverse is not 
necessarily true, that fifty thousand vol-
umes in a library will insure either a 

good staff or a high level of academic 
excellence. Obviously the quality of the 
library staff and the quality of the in-
structional staff must to some degree 
match the quality of the library collec-
tion. It is conceivable that an administra-
tion of a poor quality school might buy 
a random assortment of old books, by 
the ton, simply to claim that its library 
contained fifty thousand volumes. Nev-
ertheless there is probably a large area 
for improvement in most libraries. Mar-
tin Mayer, who spent three years visiting 
schools in Europe and the United States 
in preparation for his book The Schools~ 
states, 
" ... the library should have one very special 
attraction: it is the only place in education 
where excellence can be assured by the ex-
penditure of money. Given a librarian who 
knows her business and who reads, the qual-
ity of a library is a simple function of the 
cash spent .... In the United States, perhaps 
the easiest immediately available improve-
ment would be to take 10 per cent or so 
of the money now devoted to educational 
administration and put rit 1 into library 
books."28 

28 "Next to Teachers, the Library Is the Heart of 
Any School," Washington Daily News, June 7, 1961, 
p. 50. 

APPENDIX 

Scores for individual undergraduate 
colleges (the number of volumes per 
student is indicated for all colleges with 
more than five hundred students and 
fewer than fifty graduate students)'. 

Score of 14 through 22: 
Amherst 
Antioch 
Carleton 
Chicago 
Grinnell 
Harvard (and Radcliffe) 
Haverford 
Oberlin 

320 
92 

153 

144 

Swarthmore 
Wesleyan Univ. 

Score of 10 through 13: 
Bennington 
Bryn Mawr 
Columbia. 
Dartmouth 
Goddard . 
Goucher . 
Hamilton . 
Mount Holyoke 
Princeton . 
Vassar . 
Wellesley . 
Yale 

Reed . 173 Score of 8 or 9: 
Saint John's (Md.) 
Sarah Lawrence . 

SEPTEMBER 1963 

Beloit . 
Bowdoin . 

261 

136 
366 
195 

232 
193 

176 
314 

375 



CIT 
-A Claremont (Assoc. Colleges) 

Cornell (N.Y.) 
Elmira 
Kalamazoo 
Mills 
Park 
Smith 
Williams 

Score of 6 or 7: 
Allegheny 
Austin 
Bard 
Bates 
Berea 
Brandeis 
Brown 
California (Berkeley) 
California (Los Angeles) 
Cornell (Iowa) 
Drew 
Earlham 
Hollins 
Johns Hopkins 
Kenyon 
Knox 
Macalester 
MacMurray 
Michigan . 
Monmouth (Ill.) 
South, Univ. of 
Southwestern (Tenn.) 
Stanford 
Wabash 
Wells 
Wilson (Pa.) 
Wisconsin 
Wooster 

Score of 4 or 5: 
Agnes Scott 
Barnard 
Bethel (Kan.) 
Birmingham-Southern 
Blackburn 
B:r:ooklyn 
Chatham 
Clark (Mass .) 
Coe 
Colby 

376 

Colorado College 
Cooper Union 
Davidson . 

94 Dickinson 
116 DePauw 
195 Duke 

70 
90 
95 
66 

230 

119 
70 

125 
110 

95 

110 
98 

291 
110 
47 
86 

108 
144 
120 

155 

138 

Ill 

121 
55 
60 
60 

110 

75 
190 

Florida Presbyterian 
Franklin & Marshall 
Greenville 
Heidel burg 
Hiram 
Hood 
Illinois 
Lafayette 
Lake Erie . 
Lake Forest 
Lawrence . 
Lewis & Clark 
MIT 
Marlboro . 
Minnesota 

70 
65 

111 
85 

99 

51 
95 

Notre Dame (Md.) 90 
Occidental 
Oklahoma City Univ. 26 
Pembroke 
Pennsylvania State 
Pennsylvania . 
Principia . 124 
Queens 
Randolph-Macon Women's College 130 
Rice 
Ripon . IIO 
Rochester 
Saint Lawrence Univ. liS 
Saint Mary's (Ind.) 55 
Saint Olaf 81 
Shimer 
Sweet Briar 
Trinity (Conn.) 
Trinity (Wash., D.C.) 
Union (N.Y.) 
Univ. of the Pacific 
Wagner 
Yankton 
Yeshiva 

180 

95 
180 

(Note that the 119 colleges listed are ap-
proximately 5 per cent of all colleges 
and universities in the United States, 
hence all of the 119 can be considered to 
belong to an "excellent" category.) • • 

COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES